


What You Know

by applecameron



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Chinatown, Gen, M/M, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron





	What You Know

Ezra had this perfect complexion, not like any of the other Seven, who all wore the tracks of their years and the sun. Ezra, in contrast, always seemed a little like some kind of doll. Even Mary Travis’s complexion wasn’t as fine as his, and was’t that a strange thing? Her being such a fine lady and all? Ladies are supposed to be more beautiful than men, not the other way round.

Closest was probably that cute little Chinese girl he sent off to San Francisco or thereabouts, to find her family. Gave her all that money. Nathan said she had the sweetest face, she really did, even and clear and eyes that really looked at you, and Vin had seen her, a bit, before she left. And she really was as Nathan described.

Miss Li, that was the girl’s name. She was a nice girl, too, and if she’d stayed, might’ve tamed Ezra some, but neither Vin nor Chris would’ve placed any bets on it.

As it stood, taming Ezra seemed near impossible. But Miss Li was the only woman who either of them knew had spent the entire night in his room in the time they’d known him, and weren’t just about all Seven buzzing for a day or two with that gossip, like hens pecking? Had they or hadn’t they, and if so, was a Chinese woman’s virtue like that of a Christian one? Especially since money’d changed hands? A conundrum to all but Nathan, who’d stood quite firm that the monetary exchange had been illegal and void because that would be slavery, damn it all, and hadn’t the North won? Didn’t the North’s win apply to the territories? And so it was.

Who’d want to tame him, anyhow? An aloof, fine-limbed creature like that should never really be broken. Those like him could only be enticed to stand and be bridled, never cowed. Fierce and free and carrying that delicate little derringer on his wrist, that was Ezra. He was himself, and nothing else, even though ‘himself’ was smoke and mirrors and jest and card tricks and a hundred deceptions to hide a core that ran too feeling to not be hurt. All those facets were all him and that was what he was. Coyote-as-man, the laughing, loving, deceiver. Why he’d decided to love Four Corners and “Los Magnificos” was something Vin pondered at intervals but never asked out loud. Coyote went where he would and did as he would. Besides, if he questioned Ezra, Ezra might question the decision. And that wouldn’t do. He was family now, by the Great Spirit. By Josiah’s Lord. And by whatever Miss Li and her people revered.

But once Vin took up with Chris, the two of them settling down out at his place to raise a few horses, not that Vin didn’t still run off for weeks at a time to visit the Kiowa, or the Seminole village where Nathan slowly courted Rain, or go looking for some of his old Comanche brothers, or sometimes just go, with nowhere in mind, that diamond quality of Ezra seemed a little dimmer. Not tarnished, just - he missed them, was Vin’s guess.

He missed them. Coyote missed his brothers. Or Chris, at least, since Ezra always seemed his sharpest when Chris Larabee was about.

Chris had the right of it, when he spoke on the subject, just the one time, but it stuck with Vin, so he remembered. He remembered most things Chris said, just as he remembered every touch in the bed they shared on nights he found the barn loft too cold or lonely and crawled in to share body heat with Chris rather than a horse. Horses shit in bed, people didn't, Vin reasoned.

“He’s ten steps ahead, so you’ve got to be twenty.”

And he was right. 

So, not thinking too hard about it, Vin invited himself to a couple card games, and carried Ezra drunk up to his room a couple times, not enough to warrant suspicion, and then said, “well, brother, you need me, you got me.” And that was that.

That was that.


End file.
